backbone-server

Backbone-Server

Backbone-Server creates a Server module which pulls together Backbone and Express to bring greater structure to your NodeJS applications.

Backbone.Server can be accessed just like any other Backbone module:

var Backbone = require('backbone-server'); // Note: Backbone-Server relies on the backbone npm package and is not required.

// Current defaults for Backbone.Server
var server = new Backbone.Server({
    'port'         : 8000,
    'public'       : 'public',      // The Public Director
    'views'        : 'views',       // The Views Director
    'view-engine'  : 'jade',        // Desired Templating Engine
    'routes'       : {},            // Any initial routes you may have (or create them all at once)
    'socketio'     : false          // If set to true, Backbone.Server will enable socket.io functionality
});

And of course, you can always extend it in traditional Backbone form:

var Blog = Backbone.Server.extend({

    // Custom features can go here

});

Routes

Once you have added a Server, add routes just as you would with Express:

server.get('/post/:id', function(req, res) {
    var id = req.params.id,
        article = articles.get(id);
    
    res.render('single', article);
});

server.post('/post', function(req, res) {
    articles.add(req.params);
});

server.put('/post/:id', function(req, res) {
    var article = article.get(req.params.id);
    
    article.set(req.params);
});

server.delete('/post/:id', function(req, res) {
    articles.remove(params.req.id);    
});

Using Socket.io functions:

To enable socket.io functionality, set the socketio attribute to true upon creation of your new Backbone.Server object:

var server = new Backbone.Server(
    'socketio'     : true          // If set to true, Backbone.Server will enable socket.io functionality
});

This will create an instance of socket.io at the io attribute of your new server object (server.io). You can now add standard socket.io events using the send and receive methods, like so:

// Socket.IO Functions
server.receive('connection', function() {
    console.log("connected");
    
    //... enter your server side code to create your models
    
    server.send('models', [a, b, c, d]);
});

In your clientside application, you can receive commands from the server like so (note that backbone-server automatically provides a route to load Underscore and Backbone):

<script src="/backbone-server/backbone.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<script src="/socket.io/socket.io.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<script>
    var socket = io.connect('http://localhost');
    
    var Article = Backbone.Model.extend();
    
    var Articles = Backbone.Collection.extend({
        model: Article,
        
        initialize: function() {
            
            // Bind an event to notify when an article has been added to the server
            this.bind('add', function(article) {
                console.log("Article added!");
            });
        }
    });
    
    var articles = new Articles();
    
    socket.on('models', function(data) {
        _.each(data, function(d) {
            articles.add(d);   // queues the collection event ('articles added!');
        });
    });
      
</script>

To summarize, in the example above, we've created a Backbone.Server which will push down server side models upon connection, and add them to the client scripts Articles collection.

Starting the Server:

Once you have created a server starting it is easy:

server.start();

Don't see something here you like from Express or Socket.io?

###Target Express directly:

// server.express == Express
server.express

###Target Socket.io directly:

// server.io == socket.io
server.io